Let me make a prediction

President Barack Obama works at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, ahead of Tuesday night's State of the Union speech. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

>>>The State of the Union will be broadcast and streamed online on KIRO Radio LIVE Tuesday starting at 6 p.m.

Tonight, in the State of the Union address, the president will announce that state of the Union is strong. He does it every year; I suppose to reassure us that this little experiment in nationhood is working.

But I can see why there might be some doubt.

Because this is a union where you can be married in some states, but unmarried once you cross the border? You can smoke and grow pot safely in some states, but in others they throw you in jail and take your property.

Some states help you get health care coverage, and others try to protect you from it.

But what really makes me question the state of the union is that the approval rating for the Congress – the body considered by the founders to best represent the collective will of the people – is 13 percent! Which is pretty much a repudiation not just of Congress, but of the whole concept of “E Pluribus Unum.” It’s the Pluribus without the Unum.

So President Obama will give his speech and then the same Congress which just finished clapping for him, will sit on its hands the rest of the year.

Last year, the big issues were a passionate call for gun control after Newtown; and comprehensive immigration reform: neither happened.

The president also said last year, “The greatest nation on Earth cannot keep conducting its business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next.”

Huge applause.

And then?

The greatest nation on Earth went up to the edge of default twice, and shut itself down.

Congress doesn’t need a speech, it needs group therapy.

I’m waiting for the year the president goes to the podium, gives his Super Bowl pick, says God Bless America, and calls it good.